Be careful when buying ebay eggs!!

[clucking cuties]

I posted this on the Lavener Orphington Project thread, but I thought I would also post here, since the eggs came from ebay.

This is a question for those of you who are experienced with newly hatched Lavender Orpington chicks. I do understand that these are “project birds”, and may not yet breed “true to type”

My 12-year-old son, who can best be described as “chicken crazy”, is in love with the look of Lavender Orpingtons. (We already have Buff Orpingtons, purchased from the feed store as layers) We have had some limited success hatching eggs from ebay, for those breeds that are not often carried by hatcheries, or locally available. We have tried to hatch out 2 batches of ebay Lavender Orpington eggs. The first batch was all “clears” after incubation for 3 weeks, and did not to me appear to have ever been fertile. I tried a different seller, who advertised the following: “12 rare pure breed lavender Orpington hatching eggs. These are show Quality birds from the Hink-JC line. The hens are excellent egg producers. These are young birds and fertility has been confirmed.”

We were really excited to have these eggs, because we know of the excellent reputation of these lines (Hink-jc)

, from this forum and elsewhere, although we also realize that ebay sellers don’t always tell the truth about their products

.

Out of 12 eggs shipped, two had hairline cracks, and were discarded because I didn’t want to chance the contamination of the incubator. Of the remaining 10 eggs, all but 3 died during various stages of development, but we are still perfecting temperature, humidity and other factors for high-altitude incubation (6,200 feet), so I am not blaming the seller in any way for this, and left good feedback. One died without pipping, (full term)

, and it actually looked like what I have seen pictured for lavender Orpington chicks, color wise. The two that hatched do not look anything like the lavender Orpington chicks that I have seen pictures of here or elsewhere. They have no grayish tinge at all, not even in subtle spots like I have seen in the “mottled recessive” pictures. They are golden all over, have orange looking legs and beaks, in fact they look exactly like the buff Orpington chicks we purchased earlier this year.

My son is heartbroken; he is too smart not to see that these cute little ones look more buff than lavender. He is trying to tell himself that are chocolate Orpingtons, but they don’t look like that to me either. I currently have another set of “lavender Orpington eggs in the bator from the same seller, so I have contacted them with the above questions, but no answer so far.

I am new here, so I don’t know if I can post pictures, but I can try when I get home tonight, but my questions are as follows:

1. Could they really be just very light colored lavender Orpington babies, that will change color later?
   
2. Is it common to get buff colored “throwbacks” in lavender lines?
3. Could they be subtle manifestations of the mottled gene in the early lavender lines,
   
   (I would actually be quite OK with that, as their pictures are rather stunning
   
   )
4. Do lavenders have any special problems with fertility rates, late or difficult hatching?

Thanks for listening

, all opinions are appreciated, as I am trying to comfort a heart broken 12-year-old.

 

[EweSheep]

These do not look remotely like the Lavender throwbacks.

Something tells me a rogue rooster hopped over the fence or the seller might have put in the wrong hatching eggs. These look alot like the Golden Laced Wyndotte colors but the combs I see are single combs.

Have you looked at the seller's other auctions to see what other breeds he may have had in the auctions. A picture of the chicks would ID as NOT Lavenders. If the seller does not recognize as non Lavenders or tried to weasel his way out, then you can file a compliant to Ebay if he does not do anything to resolve the problem (like free doz of Lavender hatching eggs or money refunded back).

Good luck!

 

[clucking cuties]

A little update here:

When I emailed the seller about the color of the chicks, the seller's first response was that they "would darken up later"

When I started to ask more questions about the line, and possibly a mottled recessive, here was part of the response: "I do not have any mottled birds. The picture on the auction are my birds. You see we have 3 foster girls and this is a project I started with them. I keep telling them to make sure they keep the eggs from the different breeds separate. But every once in a while I get an email from a customer that got a few wrong eggs. I apologize. I sold all my buffs this week so the only chickens I have left are the Lavenders so there will not be anymore mix ups."

I understand that mistakes may be made, and I think that the kids my have actually gathered the eggs from the buff Orphington pen. Because I had questions about how the hatched chicks looked (only one is currently surviving) I posted a few questions on BYC forum to make sure that I understood the lavender Orpington project, which BTW is not yet a separate breed but are still considered a project bird within the Orpingtons. There are some very knowledgeable and experienced people in the Orpington breed, who are also working on the lavender Orpington project. One of the gentlemen on the forum, who is very experienced in breeding and showing Orpingtons, (including the lavender phenotype) was very informative about the genetics of this variation and the lavender Orpington project in general.

This respected Orpington breeder and exhibitor asked to see pictures of the birds that we hatched from the Ebay listing and the link to the listing which stated the following: "12 Rare Pure Breed Lavender Orpington Hatching Eggs; 12 rare pure breed lavender orpington hatching eggs. These are show Quality birds from the Hink-JC line."

The respected breeder's opinion to me after viewing the listing was the following “These are maybe an F2 generation. Very poor type. Pure Lavender, yes. Pure Orpington, no. They think they have show quality, but do not.”


His opinion of the pictures we sent of the chicks was the following: “That is a Buff, no Lavender at all. If it had Lavender in it would show as Black in this generation. I would open a case with eBay that "item received not what advertised". Ask for a refund of all eggs”


I guess I feel bad about this all the way around. My 12-year-old son had his heart set on participation in the lavender Orpington project. We spent good money on eggs, having them shipped; and worked and stressed during the incubation project, only to hatch out birds that are not suitably described as “lavender Orpington”. There was a lot of disappointment with this, especially for my son. On the other side of the coin I don't want the kids to feel badly if they did made an honest mistake. The silver lining was that I did end up meeting (online anyway) some very nice and knowledgeable Orpington people in trying to better understand this.

My response to the seller included the following:

"So my feeling right now is this is: you offered to send me more eggs, but I don’t really want them at this point. I would settle for a partial refund, but I would like to see you be a bit more accurate in your listings and more careful about the eggs that you ship to your customers. It is my feeling that one should be honest, fair, and try to do the best for others that we can do. Sharing your household (and the joy of chickens) with foster children is a wonderful thing, so I do think that you are doing some good in this world, and due to this, I do not intend to file an ebay complaint. However, I do think that you should be more careful about the wording in your future listings, and the pens that your hatching eggs come from. It is also very important to those who have dedicated their lives to the Orpington breed, that people represent their birds honestly, and actually strive to improve the birds in the lavender project rather than just selling them at “lavender” prices."

I have not heard back further from this seller, who BTW has a 100% positive feedback rating on eBay.

 

[HEChicken]

These are show Quality birds from the Hink-JC line.

I don't know if you realize, but hinkjc is a moderator here on the forum. It might be better to deal directly?

 

[hdowden]

has a 100% positive feedback rating on eBay

this is because you are supposed to only leave feed back on how your eggs arrived to you not how your hatch went and what you hatched although you can sometimes find that on their feedback

 

[clucking cuties]

I think that part of the problem with eBay is that feedback IS based upon receiving the eggs in a mostly unbroken state. Even if the eggs are broken and the packaging is poor compared to others who are selling hatching eggs, the seller can still blame the post office. It is true that the post office can really traumatize the eggs, or they may be exposed to extremes of temperature or x-ray, so the hatch rate can be dismal or non-existent. If no chicks hatch, then the seller has a perfectly reasonable excuse, which in some cases may be all to true. The seller can also reasonably blame a poor hatch rate on the buyers incubation technique, as we all know that many factors can affect this.

I have had batches of eggs that I received on the same day from different sellers that when incubated together and candled at 10 days; one batch were all "clears" while the other was nearly 100% developing. Maybe the eggs were fertile, maybe they were not, who knows? Maybe the post office x-rayed one batch and not the other. There are so many variables that the seller has a lot of really good ready made excuses and will still maintain the good feedback rating even if nobody hatches a chick.
That being said, in my experience so far (limited as it may be), I feel that I have hatched some beautiful birds from eBay sellers.

These were types of birds that are not available from my local feed store, and of a quality that I believe that may exceed some hatchery stock. On the other side of the coin, there have been some notable disappointments.

There have been batches that were "all clears" and I threw them out never to buy from the seller again, even thought the eggs arrived intact and I had left positive feedback. Maybe it wasn't even the sellers fault, but I just don't feel like spending money on that seller's eggs again.

However, when you do hatch a bird that is obviously not the same variety as the seller advertised (buff Orpington hatched from "lavender Orpington" egg) and this is confirmed by someone very knowledgeable within the breed, then the seller is lacking in either care in gathering the eggs or credibility in advertising. Either way, I choose not to repeat the mistake.

I have since found that you can get eggs from members here and there are some fantastic members!

My son is writing an essay on "Why I Want to Raise Orpingtons" in order to receive some wonderful eggs in a very kind and generous offer made to him by the HallFamilyFarms.

I have bid on some other eggs listed by other respected members of BYC who seem to be extremely knowledgeable about the particular breeds that they are raising and selling.

While I may still bid on eBay eggs from time to time, I know that it is "Buyer Beware" and I will not bid so much that I will feel badly if none hatch, or the quality of the birds does not match the sellers description.

Happy hatching,

everyone

 

[HEChicken]

When I've bought eggs on eBay, I give feedback upon arrival, regarding how well they were packaged, how quickly they were shipped, and if there were any broken/cracked. Then I go and update my feedback after hatch, to provide the hatch rate. I've seen a few people do that and I wish everyone would, as I find the information helpful. If a seller consistently has people saying they had either a high or a low hatch rate, it helps me to decide from whom to buy my eggs. A consistently high hatch rate means a) that the eggs are fertile and b) that the seller is packaging in such a way that the eggs survive the rigors of PO handling. A consistently low hatch rate *might* mean low fertility or it *might* mean that the seller is not packaging very well. It could also be the buyer's incubation technique but over time, if one seller always has a low hatch rate I tend to think it is more likely to be on the seller's end.